Your Princess is in Another Castle
by Queen of the Girl Scouts
Summary: Everyone tells her that she is paranoid and should move on, but every time she closes her eyes she remembers why they are wrong. — Azula x Ty Lee. O/S. Repost.


**_A/N:_** _I started this directly after reading Smoke and Shadow Part I back in October, so it's kind of Jossed? I don't know, it can sort of still fit with canon, but only for now._

* * *

 **Your Princess is in Another Castle**

* * *

 _And there's no remedy for memory  
Your face is like a melody  
It won't leave my head  
Your soul is haunting me and telling me  
That everything is fine  
But I wish I was dead  
_" _Dark Paradise" – Lana Del Rey_

* * *

 _Dear Azula,_

 _I don't know how to write a letter. Why did nobody teach me how to write a good letter? It isn't like you're reading this or anything…_

Ty Lee does not just crumple this one like the others. She tears it to shreds, streaking her hands with dark ink. She doesn't know what to do. Words aren't her thing, but what else is she supposed to do? It's all she thinks about anymore and maybe if she can see it she can understand it.

The candle flickers out. That has never happened to Ty Lee before; she is up much too late. The sky is already brightening and she has not even gone near her bed.

She used to dread sleep because of her nightmares; now those nightmares are what she lives for. Is she the crazy one? Yes, oh yes. Mai is right.

Zuko says Azula doesn't want to be found and will turn up when it's convenient for her, Mai says Ty Lee is hiding and Suki says Ty Lee is paranoid. But every time Ty Lee closes her eyes she knows that they have to be wrong. Nothing ever haunted her like this before. She left her heart in the Fire Nation after she left and decided looking for her was stupid like Mai said.

Ty Lee lies down and cannot sleep until she grabs her stuffed koala-otter and holds it in her arms. She doesn't like to be alone. She doesn't like the quiet on Kyoshi Island in winter, when no one is out all night enjoying each other's company, but instead are inside by fires.

 _Dear Azula,_

 _I hate being alone. I miss being alone with you. Sometimes I am at night when I look at the shadows and they look like someone about to kill me but it's really just my own shadow. I'm scared of my own shadow. You would mock me for that forever…_

It is the same dream every night. Ty Lee is trying to stop a wildfire singlehandedly, and when she screams to her friends to leave, they do not believe that it is burning. _She_ is in the fire. _She_ is the cause of the fire that burns sky blue and engulfs everyone like a tidal wave.

Ty Lee gets up sweating and cannot find her snow boots in the mess. She sighs and decides she is too hot to need it and walks across the snowy path towards the bay. The gravel isn't too icy, and the bay didn't freeze over like it does some years.

She goes out to the water and whips off her nightclothes, leaving underwear beneath.

 _Dear Azula,_

 _You make me feel like I'm drowning. I feel like you're holding me under the water and you're awful because it's not my fault. It's not my fault. It's not my fault. It's not my fault. It's not my…_

Ty Lee touches it with her toe for her morning swim that she has skipped because of the cold weather. But it doesn't feel like enough to wash her dreams off of her and so she grabs onto the slick rock leading up the cliff. She can scale it easily; Ty Lee always could climb and fly and smile when everything was burning around her.

She looks at the water and walk towards the blue water where the huge creatures live. When you swim a little way from the coastline, the ocean floor drops out from under you and you run the risk of getting eaten by Oonagi or drowning by overly-playful Elephant Koi.

But Ty Lee can beat them. Or does she not care if she could beat them?

Too late, she jumps down, ready to plunge and swim to the surface. She does feel it washing off of her as she kicks her way up with barely any air in her lungs. She reaches one hand up and it hits against ice.

 _Dear Azula._

 _I am just as trapped as you always wanted me to be. I hope you're happy. I hope you're dead._

Ty Lee summons whatever she has in her to kick up. It takes twice but she breaks through the ice and gasps, and then swallows cold, salty water, and then gasps twice more before she swims towards the gravel beneath the cliff.

 _Dear Azula,_

 _I don't hope you're dead. I'm sorry I wrote that because I'm really worried that you can read this. Because I'm crazy, and all, and I believe in ghosts…_

She stands up and the water dripping from her doesn't heal the sweat. It just makes her cold. Ty Lee walks barefoot towards the island as the sun rises and she realizes that anyone could see her like this. _Extra training. I can't handle being stuck inside._

 _Dear Azula,_

 _You taught me an awful lot. Like how to always have an excuse before I get caught. Or how to lie. Or how to absolutely not kiss somebody. You sure didn't teach me how to get over you, you bitch._

Ty Lee makes it back inside without anyone questioning her. She takes the backroads towards her house, which is really lovely, but when she was young she would hate it. Ty Lee would look at herself now and start gagging and then wail something about where she went wrong.

 _Dear Azula,_

 _Thanks for calling my shallow. It was so very polite of you. Just because I talked about marrying a rich guy all the time didn't mean I didn't look very deep. You sure weren't a winner in the personality department but I saw a side of you that I really thought I could make be real. And now you're dead. Fantastic._

She dries by the fire and then finds clothes. Ty Lee cannot fall back to sleep and maybe she doesn't want to. Someone knocks on the door.

"I just have a letter," says the poor teenage boy who looks so nervous.

Is Ty Lee scary? No, she's just sexy.

 _Dear Azula,_

 _I didn't fear you and that's how I really loved you. People weren't just scared of you ruining their lives or ending their lives or whatever. They were scared of you not liking them. Scared of you not paying them enough attention. Oh Agni, I was so scared of you but now I'm scared that you won't show up again in my life and that we ended like that do you even know? No, you don't, because you can't read this._

Ty Lee opens it and recognizes the handwriting. It's Mai's and she is probably bitching about how Ty Lee should face her fears and stop hiding in her Kyoshi Island burrow, ready to starve rather than face the coyote-fox trying to claw its way inside.

No. Mai always gets to the point, and she does in this letter.

 _Ty Lee,_

 _I just had a baby. If you want to meet it, you can. If not, I really don't care and this is just a formality._

Ty Lee laughs, because Mai _so_ does care. She looks at the letter, and looks at the other letters, and sits down. Her head hurts. She stuffs the letter into her drawer of overflowing failed ones. Maybe it deserves a spot in the metal box of ones Ty Lee considers worth giving to Azula if she ever wants to be found.

She flips through that box, looking for the letter Mai sent her about being pregnant. It had scathing comments about Ty Lee hiding and being paranoid in it, as usual, but Ty Lee saved it so she could read it over and over again to try to convince herself she should go back someday to meet the baby.

Ty Lee picks up one near the bottom.

 _Dear Azula,_

 _I'm not dumb enough to believe that I was wrong and you're right or that I should live in a fantasy about you. I'm just really scared because Zuko keeps saying that you just don't want to be found but I don't think he believes it anymore and Mai says I'm hiding and Suki says I'm paranoid. But every time I close my eyes I know that they have to be wrong. Nothing ever haunted me like this before. I left my heart in the Fire Nation after I left and decided looking for you was stupid like Mai said. Come find me if you want._

Ty Lee tried this one three times. She left two back where she was looking for Azula like a trail of breadcrumbs. Not that she has had a response in four years.

She tosses the box on the floor and sits in the glow of the fire to find the one from Mai. Ty Lee doesn't know why it is so important for her to find it, but she can't stop looking. She growls like an angry cat when she sees that it too hard to find.

How many of these did she write to a ghost?

Ty Lee is in love with her still. Which is just fucked up, and so Ty Lee starts picking up the letters and examining them one by one before releasing them into the fire and watching them burn. The fire stays orange and maybe she is saner than she thought.

The first one is hard. The second one is harder. The third one is nearly impossible. The fourth one is easier. The fifth she does faster than the others. The sixth is easy. The seventh she enjoys.

Her heart rages and the heat is what cleans the nightmares from her.

 _Mai saying, "Ty Lee, you're basically throwing yourself on her pyre. It's frustrating."_

Ty Lee's heart stops when she reaches the one she knew she would eventually. It isn't her handwriting like most of them, it isn't Zuko's, it isn't Mai's. Perfect handwriting but scarier than blood written in a wall.

 _Dearest Forest Ranger,_

 _You never were good at hide and seek._

Ty Lee swallows. Hesitates. She pulls it to her chest and holds it there.

But then she thinks about Mai's baby. She thinks that everyone lost things in the war but they kept moving. Ty Lee froze in time like the ghost in her mind, the ghost she loves far more than she ever loved the living version.

Slowly, Ty Lee touches it to the fire and watches it burn in her hand. She sees the reply to that letter at the bottom of the box.

 _Dear Azula,_

 _You wanted to win so bad that nobody ever could find you._

 **e** nd


End file.
